What are you reading in April?

[Isis]

All of my good intentions about reading for 2013 have failed. I keep starting book after book but feel like I am never truly getting stuck into any of them. Despite raging insomnia providing me with a good three hours per night of not-awake-not-asleep time I'm just so far away from getting anything finished. :(

Of all the books I've started I'm making the best progress with The Dragon's Path but I'm kind of forcing myself at this point. I keep being taken out of the story by thinking: is this really the same person who wrote The Long Price? I thought that series was very well written and polished, making it easy to read the whole way. The prose in TDP is clunky enough to make me put the book down repeatedly and just not care about what happens to any of these people, some of whom are quite samey. The one female POV stands out because it's female, but actually some of the most awkward prose is in that POV. I'll do my best to complete the book but I'll be surprised if I actually care about any of the people/events in the story by the time I'm done.

I'll tell you what is really good though - Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman. It's a collection of odd short stories which I bought for my kindle, and as such I save it for reading in bed at night with the lights off. I see it as an extra special treat so I'm actually trying to read it slowly and eke it out a while longer.

[Snowborn]

Just finished with Red Country, what a good book. I think it's my favorite of the standalones, and I can't quite point out why. I'm sad I won't get to read a new Abercrombie book until who knows when, I still want more. I might reread the trilogy...

So my idea of taking up the Wool omnibus next will stay just that, an idea. I think I'm going to pick up So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance, by Gabriel Zaid, which is one of the books I have to read for one of the classes I'm taking. It sounds interesting, it's a collection of essays about the act of reading and the book market. The fact that I have to read it for university takes away the fun, it prevents me from enjoying a book as much as I would if I had chosen to. So I'll start with it now, before getting a deadline, so I can read it with no rush and maybe even enjoy it.

Has anyone read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster? A friend reccomended it to me, but I'd like to hear more opinions...

[UndergroundMan]

Hyperion is a weird one for me. I enjoyed it enough but I don't think I could face rereading it. There's alot good about the books and it is intresting but it's also a long slog. I loved when all the characters were telling one another their back stories and how it's all linked.

I think it's a book that most people will either love or hate but I would still recommend it. The author (Dan Simmons if I remember right) certainly does not lack ambition though

I very much enjoyed Hyperion and its sequel. Looking back on it, I definitely enjoyed the first one more. And I remember only a little of what happened in the second. However, I wasn't interested enough to read on to the Endymion sequels partly because I had heard the Hyperion was the best of the series.

[Sansa_Stark]

Started The Heroes of Ages today. Mistborn is great.

[kingofashes]

Has anyone read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster? A friend reccomended it to me, but I'd like to hear more opinions...

I love Paul Austers books. One of my top 5 authors (non fantasy authors) with Douglas Coupland. I don't think I would start with the new york trilogy though. It's an interesting read but very strange and one of his weirdest novels.

Start with country of the last things, Brooklin follies, Invisible or man in the dark... hell start with any of his books. Def read the new york trilogy but I wouldn't start there. Or if you do start there and dislike it then make sure you try another.

Kinda reminds me of Gaiman... lots of magic in their books

[Captain Sheepf*cker]

Almost finished with Quantum Thief. Not nearly as impressed as I was led to believe I would be. I found the whole thing to be sort of....not necessarily pretentious, but very full of itself, shiny, and sharp. Not saying it's not good, just not really my sort of book. But maybe I felt that way because the book I read before it was Blue Remembered Earth which I thought was absolutely phenomenal in every way possible. Next up some Atrocity Archives.

[Baelor Swyft]

Reading The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth at the moment. Up next I have Julie Anne Peters' She Loves You, She Loves You Not, the third book I'm reading of hers. After that comes Girl Walking Backwards by Bett Williams.

[Greg]

Listening to James Hornfischer's Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal and reading Samuel Hynes' The Soldiers' Tale: Bearing Witness to a Modern War. Just finished Dennis Lahane's A Drink Before the War and Darkness Take My Hand.

[deleted01]

Started Red Seas Under Red Skies today. It's good, I can really get into Lynch's narrative quite easily, but something about this just isn't grabbing me as much as Locke Lamora did.

Has anyone read Lawless? I saw the film and loved it, saw the book for pretty cheap in HMV so I picked it up.

[Juli Greyjoy]

After finishing Red Country about a week ago, I couldn't bring myself to read anything else than Abercrombie. I started again with The Blade Itself. :D

[RedEyedGhost]

I finished Moving Mars by Greg Bear, and I loved it. It's a little slow to start, and I definitely didn't always like the protagonist but it was a wonderful ride. It begins in 2171 as revolution is brewing on Mars because Earth is pushing for a more unified state instead of the Binding Multiples that rule Mars now (more smaller units that are more like very large families). The story is told as a memoir of Casseia Majumdar who has just had her student contract voided, along with the lion's share of all university students, because of vague anti-statist sympathies. Earth and Martian relations continue to deteriorate as Mars makes a breakthrough in physics that could potentially threaten Earth. Once we get through the initial setup it really picks up, and has an amazing amount of story for such a slight book. I had put off reading this for several years because I had seen it compared poorly to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, and while they are both about Mars they are vastly different works. So far, it's my second favorite book this year, edged out by another older sci-fi work - Ken Grimwood's Replay.

I've now just begun London Falling by Paul Cornell which is drawing comparisons to Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, but apparently quite a bit darker.

[Sansa_Stark]

Starting Fires of Heaven now.

[SkynJay]

After struggling through a couple of submissions I am going back to a series that that gets me, Deadly Games the third Emperor's Edge book by Buroker.

I also just finished Witches Abroad, and thus have arrived at Small Gods in my Pratchett reread. Because, you know, I have only read Small Gods a dozen or so times in my life.

[Rorshach]

Finished The Sextants of Beijing. Next up in my non-fiction pile: Thinking. Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Really enjoyed The Sextants of Beijing, btw. Persuasively written (the argument presented is that our picture of China as a closed nation is mostly wrong, and even when it's right, it needs more nuance).

[jagilki]

Finished Wool a few days ago, working on Shift Omnibus now. After that.... not sure. Have a handful to read, just have to decide.

[Mexal]

Dorothy Dunnett just got put on my To Read list. How is she? are her works good?

Dunnett is great. As was mentioned, her work can be dense and she does throw in quotes in different languages, especially during the Lymond series, but it lessens later in her books. I love her plotting and her books, once you get past the first 100-200 pages, fly by so fast and come together at the end better than most other books I've read. Well worth reading, especially if you're at all interested in the time period as they are impeccably researched.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I love sailing travelogues and An Embarrassment of Mangoes was a good one to read.

Up next is River of Stars by G.G. Kay.

[Nearly Headless Ned]

The Small Hand-Susan Hill.

Really nicely written and quite spooky but it's all rather slender and generic. Mixed feelings then.

[wolverine]

Dunnett is great. As was mentioned, her work can be dense and she does throw in quotes in different languages, especially during the Lymond series, but it lessens later in her books. I love her plotting and her books, once you get past the first 100-200 pages, fly by so fast and come together at the end better than most other books I've read. Well worth reading, especially if you're at all interested in the time period as they are impeccably researched.

I have only read the first two Lymond books and both had fantastic endings.

[lojzelote]

This week I finished The Remains of the Day and Sandkings.

I had heard the former was supposed to be slow, but it was too short to become slow, imo. While reading, the cast of Downton Abbey kept popping up in my head (Mr Stevens was Bates, Miss Kenton Anna), which didn't endear me since I don't like DA. But it was a good book otherwise; I plan on pondering about it a little for a while to discover all sorts of clever things the author wanted to share. :D

I really liked Sandkings; I enjoyed it far better than the other collection by GRRM I have read, A Song for Lya, that too wasn't anywhere need bad. It would be hard for me to point out the story I enjoyed the most; probably Starlady or In the House of the Worm. Surprisingly though, I wasn't carried away by generally adored The Way of Cross and Dragon (I guess I'm not much into religion and thousands of years old conspiracies). The titular Sandkings were very good, but not as outstanding as many make it to be, IMO.

It's role probably also plays that with the description of little six-legged Sandkings still fresh in mind, I constantly recognized Wo's workers, the likes of which Kress had never seen before, four-handed, two legged, for what they were. No surprise. And Kress didn't suffer nearly enough, that bastard. Poor puppy. :frown5:

Off to begin Zadie Smith's White Teeth; I've heard only praise about it, so I cannot wait.